Embattled Portland landlord allowed to evict 10 tenants

A Portland landlord now facing a second lawsuit in the wake of a deadly Nov. 1 fire on Noyes Street won a court settlement Thursday allowing him to evict 10 tenants of a Dartmouth Street duplex. They claim he is retaliating because they reported safety code violations to city officials.

In both cases, it appears that the landlord, Gregory Nisbet, a real estate agent with Downeast Realty Inc., may have been operating the apartment buildings illegally and unsafely as unlicensed rooming houses, according to court documents, witness accounts and city officials.

Additional Images

On Thursday, lawyers for Nisbet and the tenants of 188 Dartmouth St. worked out an agreement in Portland District Court that requires them to voluntarily move out by Feb. 15. The case was continued to Feb. 19, after which any tenants who haven’t left may be forcibly removed.

Meanwhile, Nikki and Louis Thomas Jr. of Gilford, New Hampshire, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Cumberland County Superior Court on behalf of their daughter, Ashley Thomas, a 29-year-old photographer who was one of six people killed in the fire at 20 Noyes St.

The Thomases are seeking $2 million from Nisbet and claim that he was negligent in causing the wrongful death of their daughter because surviving tenants say the duplex had a blocked exit and no working smoke alarms.

The lawsuit is the second to result from Maine’s deadliest fire in 40 years. The fast-moving blaze, which forced survivors to jump from a second-story window at 20 Noyes St., remains under investigation.

Two blocks over at 188 Dartmouth St., the newly evicted tenants say Nisbet is retaliating because they called in city inspectors, who found numerous code violations and damage done by previous tenants, said Katherine McGovern, a lawyer with Pine Tree Legal Assistance.

“We got the eviction notice three days after I had city (inspectors) come see our home,” said Roxann White, one of the evicted tenants.

Some of the code violations, including padlocks or deadbolts installed on several bedroom doors, indicate that the three-story apartment was being operated as a rooming house, which requires a special license and triggers more stringent safety regulations, according to city inspectors.

Nisbet charged $350 to $450 per month for a room at 188 Dartmouth St., McGovern said, including for the former dining room and a former walk-in closet.

Nisbet’s lawyer, David Chamberlain, denied that his client is retaliating or that he operated the apartment as a rooming house. Chamberlain said the tenants are responsible for code violations found by city inspectors, including locks on bedroom doors, extension cords running down hallways and stairways, damaged plumbing, a disabled heating system, illegal space heaters and piles of trash.

“Most of the violations were caused by tenants,” Chamberlain said. “My client sought eviction to avoid further potential problems or dangerous circumstances.”

The tenants being evicted from 188 Dartmouth St. also are behind on their rent, Chamberlain said. They include Stephen Solden, Noor Hussein Ibrahim, Jibril Koshin, John Siegfried, Chris Kidder and Scott Hamilton, as well as three people who have unknown or multiple last names, according to Nisbet’s claim.

Nisbet hasn’t evicted tenants from the other half of duplex, the address of which is 186 Dartmouth.

City officials inspected 188 Dartmouth St. on Dec. 15 and tried to inspect 186 Dartmouth St. as well, but the tenants wouldn’t let them in, said city spokeswoman Jessica Grondin.

It was the sixth inspection of the Dartmouth Street building since July 2013, and the first since the Noyes Street fire. Because the three-story building has only two units, it’s subject to safety inspections only when there’s a complaint. White, the tenant who has now been evicted, said she had complained repeatedly to Nisbet without results, so she decided to call the city after the Noyes Street fire.

City officials had been negotiating with Nisbet to enter and inspect his other properties in Portland, including 124-126 Noyes St., but he suddenly changed his mind, Grondin said. Now the city’s attorney is developing a case to seek a judge’s order to inspect Nisbet’s holdings, Grondin said.

After the Noyes Street fire, the wife of Steven Summers, a 29-year-old Rockland man and father of two who died several days after the blaze, filed a lawsuit seeking $1.7 million in damages. On Dec. 2, Justice Joyce Wheeler ruled that Ashley Summers likely would receive a judgment against Nisbet and froze his real estate assets in Cumberland County to cover future claims.

The court order to freeze real estate assets was based on affidavits that offer detailed accounts on the harrowing escape of two of the fire’s survivors, a history of alleged neglect at the Noyes Street property and a claim the apartment was being managed like a boarding house.

John Veilleux, Nisbet’s attorney for the wrongful death claims, declined to comment on either lawsuit.

The city had received 16 complaints about the Noyes Street duplex since 2003, when Nisbet bought the property. Concerns ranged from improperly stored combustible materials to an illegal unit on the third floor, where Thomas lived. Court papers note that city officials attempted to question Nisbet about the allegedly illegal unit, but Nisbet did not return the call.

Court papers also show that Nisbet was an easy-going landlord to tenants of 20 Noyes St. Nathan Long, a tenant who escaped the fire, told an investigator that he never signed a lease and that Nisbet was “lenient” and “a cool guy” who allowed tenants to fill room vacancies with friends who needed a place to live, according to an affidavit.

Chamberlain said all of the tenants at 188 Dartmouth St. also were tenants at will.

If 188 Dartmouth St. or 20 Noyes St. were being operated as a rooming house, it would have required additional building code and fire protection measures, such as a sprinkler system and a hard-wired alarm system with a pull-handle alert and strobe lights, city officials said.

White said she and her roommates at 188 Dartmouth St. must quickly find new places to stay, despite a tight housing market that makes vacancies hard to find.

“They are a bit stunned that this is happening,” White said in a written response to questions about the eviction. “Moving takes a bit. It’s not something that just happens overnight. So now everyone is being forced to figure things out.”

Here at MaineToday Media we value our readers and are committed to growing our community by encouraging you to add to the discussion.

To ensure conscientious dialogue we have implemented a strict no-bullying policy. To participate, you must follow our Terms of Use. Click here to flag and report a comment that violates our terms of use.